Jamie's 15 Minute Meals

I don't usually do full book reviews on here. I think it's more useful to review individual recipes that I have tried that worked, however I love this book so much it's getting it's very own post. SO THERE.

I wasn't that keen on the Jamie's 30-Minute Meals: A Revolutionary Approach to Cooking Good Food Fast . Because there was often three parts to each meal there would usually only be one part that I liked the sound of and that seemed to defeat the point of the book for me. I bought it for Joe because he wanted it and it really is his sort of food and he really likes the whole timed aspect of it (never taken him less than 45mins but our kitchen is tiny and Jamie doesn't factor in having to actually wash up half way through) and it's really the only recipe book he cooks from. But while I was at a friends house waiting for her to change my godson's nappy I picked up Jamie's 15-Minute Meals and flicked through it and was incredibly surprised to find I wanted to cook 85% of the things in there. That's huge - I'm an incredibly picky eater.

I may be getting old (veering towards 31) but I recently decided that if I could have ten minutes to sit down with a celebrity-that's-not-Slash, Jamie Oliver would be in the running for that prestigious honour. Why? Because I think he is generally interested in people (and it's all about me obvs) and is actually a nice guy I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU SAY.

Anyway I bought Jamie's 15-Minute Meals and tonight I'm planning on cooking my second thing from it and I've only had it a couple of weeks This is unheard of. It just lives on the kitchen table tempting me to cook from it. If tonight's recipe goes well and I remember to take pictures then I will post it up here but for now here are some reasons why this book is awesome...

1. It has great compromise food. Quite often Joe will get home at 9pm and want to eat. I don't want to eat at 9pm but I'm too gluttonous to cook and watch him eat and not eat anything myself. It has a lot of lighter, salady things but with meat in that suit both of us and actually are great for this time of year when you want to cook something filling but not meat-and-two-veg.

2. It's completely different to his other books. New recipes, new types of ingredients, slightly new way of writing. It must be really hard to keep churning them out even if you do have new recipe ideas but it's a completely different book to Jamie's 30-Minute Meals: A Revolutionary Approach to Cooking Good Food Fast (and I mean that in a publishing way not in a literal stupid way...).

3. There are great ideas but it's not too wacky. I don't like lemon (but you know that), I don't like courgette or aubergine but I also don't want to be driving to a business park in Park Royal (no park, no evidence of royalty) to buy some suspicious smelling paste or a gadget to make edible cellophane (sorry Heston). If there's something I don't like (preserved lemons in tonight's recipe) I leave it out or substitute it and it doesn't really matter. You are not going to get halfway through a recipe (supposedly 7.5 minutes in) and discover you need something that is hard to find during daylight hours let alone 8.30pm. Don't get me wrong sometimes I want wacky. I do. But with an 18 month old, two dogs and a husband who thinks that playing football on a Tuesday until 9.30pm is fun I mostly want yummy and simple.

4. I LOVE JAMIE (sorry that slipped out).

5. I prefer his outfit on Jamie's 15-Minute Meals to Jamie's 30-Minute Meals: A Revolutionary Approach to Cooking Good Food Fast (this is a well rounded review isn't it).